Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!lsuc!iguana!merce
From: merce@iguana.uucp (Jim Mercer)
Subject: Re: BITFTP grief!
Message-ID: <1991May18.043409.7020@iguana.uucp>
Organization: Ed (the iguana) Memorial Society
References: <81678@bu.edu> <1705@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca> <1991May16.154958.13266@crom2.uucp>
Distribution: na
Date: Sat, 18 May 91 04:34:09 GMT

In article <1991May16.154958.13266@crom2.uucp> jim@crom2.uucp (James P. H. Fuller) writes:
>If you shut down BITFTP you're screwing all the legitimate users along
>with the abusers, including every small college and small research enter-
>prise in the Known Universe which can't afford a leased-line Internet
>connection.  There must be a more intelligent way!  I say THANK YOU to
>the folks at Princeton through whose good offices outsiders are permit-
>ted to use BITFTP.  

do i hear a thanks for those sites between Princeton and the small sites who
store and forward your valuable data?

maybe if these small sites can't afford the line charges, they are out of
their league?  (the is more meant for the non-academic sites)

>merce@iguana.uucp (Jim Mercer) writes:
>> how much of a net.lobby do we have to do to get pucc.princeton.edu to shut
>> down BITFTP?
>>
>> can we at least get them to limit responses to systems that can be verified
>> as being on BITNET (as i assume the system was intended)?
>
>......       Shutting down BITFTP would solve your mail prob-
>lems, but so would shutting down iguana. There are more thoughtful solutions
>than either of these!

shutting down iguana would not cause any grief, but that's not the system i
was talking about (see top of original article).

shutting down lsuc.on.ca would affect ~75 systems directly and an unknown
number of downstream sites.  lsuc is a mail hub for Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

also, lsuc.on.ca is not the only (or first) site to complain about MBAS abuse.

MBAS's are a plague on the email network.

email is not for file transfers.  it wasn't designed for it (hence uuencode,
40-64K chunks, etc) and most systems budget disk space and modem time
according to what they figure will be normal mail loads.

i don't care if someone orders EMACS source or bionet info, if it is uuencoded
and chunked, it is an abuse of the email network.

>.......   Every single admin I have ever
>met has wanted to be considered clever; just saying "Nuke Princeton" is
>not the way to impress people with your skill in your job.

i'm not trying to be clever.
i don't say nuke princeton either.

my suggestion that they limit BITFTP to BITNET (as i assume it was intended)
has been taken to heart, if i am to believe some of the posts and email
i have received recently.

-- 
[ Jim Mercer   work: jim@lsuc.on.ca  home: merce@iguana.uucp  +1 519 570-3467 ]
[              "Anarchists Unite!" - seen spray painted on a wall             ]
